The Fourth Immortal
by andbreathe
Summary: For everyone who wanted Maugin's story to have a different ending. This is my attempt to give her the ending she rightfully deserves. Don't read if you haven't read the Immortals. Oneshot.


Maugin

I have waited for so long. I have watched the years pass me by, the never-ending years, ever running past yet never catching up with me. I have watched the trees break into leaf, time and time again. I have watched their lives flourish and struggle in equal measure while my own remains the same as it has been since the day I arrived at this accursed place. I am condemned to wait here at Riverrise, wait until Twig, my captain and my friend, returns for me. I must never let my patience grow weary. I must never let the hopelessness, and the sadness, consume me. He will come one day. He made a promise.

"_A promissssssse…"_

I jump up and look around me. A voice. It sounded like an echo… but I never spoke aloud, I only thought the words… It is like the blackness is whispering my thoughts back to me. Suddenly, I am afraid. "Who's there?" I whisper. My voice is cracked and hoarse after years of disuse.

"_Your thoughtsssss… they are so sweet…" _says the voice.

A waif. It must be a waif. My heart thuds. Desperately, I try to calm my breathing and dull my mind. My thoughts will betray me if I do not hide them, so I think of the spring. The Riverrise spring. I think of its cool tinkling water, splashing over the rocks and breaking into a million droplets. The gentle sound of the water fills every crevice in my mind, washing through it as if it were the life-giving water itself.

The waif is listening.

The moment the thought comes into my head, the spring is gone. My mixed-up thoughts and memories from a million days crowd back into my head. Sights, smells, sounds; a hiss of steam from a cooling flight-rock, the savoury smell of frying tilderwood roots, Blink's blank eyes staring up at me as tears pour in warm rivers down my cheeks. Why now? Why do the memories come back to me now of all times, the one time that it was vital that they stay away?

As soon as they do, the waif pounces.

**_Never before have I had such a feast. Her thoughts open themselves to me like woodmoths to a flame, and they are wonderful. So many memories. So much experience. _**

**_A termagant trog, I see. A rider of the skies too. _**

**_And what's this? A fourthling- her captain? No, not just her captain; much more than that. Someone very important to her. Someone who she cares about very, very much. _**

**_She should learn to keep her secrets hidden. _**

Twig

_You were there at my hatching, and I have watched over you always… You were there at my hatching… I have watched over you always… _

The words echoed around and around Twig's head as he slowly came back to consciousness, the blurry world around him turning clearer. The blackness of night covered everything around him but he could just about see the wiry shapes of trees emerging from the blackness. The ground underneath him felt cold, but soft somehow, like a snowbird down.

"Twig?" said a familiar voice gently. The caterbird. He remembered huge claws grasping him, and the sound of beating wings. The caterbird had brought him here. But something had happened before that - hadn't it? Memories of crossbows and flying his sky ship came to his mind. He had been rescuing his friend… Cowlquape, the Most High Academe. Yes, he had been rescuing Cowlquape.

"Twig?" the voice said again.

"Caterbird," he murmured, squinting to make out its shape in the gloom.

"Yes, it is I," said the caterbird. "You were dying. I brought you here, to Riverrise."

Twig let out a sigh. "Riverrise." He was here. At long last, he was here.

Maugin

Slowly, I place one bare foot in front of the other, the moss cool between my toes. I tread between the rocks of the path that will lead me on. My head is spinning with what the caterbird has told me. Twig is here. My Twig is here. It is all I can do not to break into a run and rush into his arms.

There! I see the caterbird! My senses, tuned to the darkness after so many years, do not fail me. It is bending over a shape on the ground – could it be him? My foot finds the next patch of ground. Carefully, steadily. One foot in front of the other. Stay steady, as steady as a buoyant flight-rock. Keep going.

I wish for Twig to look up and see me. I can't wait to see his face after all these years. The waiting is drawing to its end. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps and the waiting is over.

Twig, see me.

**_Her beloved one! Why is he here? He must not see her. They must never meet. I cannot allow this. I must stop her. _**

Twig

"Riverrise," Twig whispered again. It seemed too good to be true. He was at Riverrise again, after all these years. There was someone he needed to see. "Caterbird-"

The caterbird looked fondly down at him and smiled. "Yes. Your Maugin is here." Then it looked over Twig's shoulder and nodded.

Twig sat up and turned his head in the direction of the caterbird's gaze.

There she was. She stood before them, her eyes wide and her hair rippling in the wind. She looked as young as she had the day he had met her, yet her eyes held the burden of a thousand ages. To Twig, nothing had ever been more beautiful.

Their eyes met. She smiled.

The journey was over. Twig had completed his mission. He smiled back.

All too suddenly, her expression turned to one of surprise. She grasped at her shoulder feebly before falling forward into the dust. Twig gasped as he saw that a dart was protruding from her motionless body.

"Maugin!" he cried, pulling his weakened limbs over to where she lay. He reached out to touch her, wake her so she could tell him she was all right, it was all right, she was going to wake up...

"_She is dead_," said a voice in his head. It was the unmistakeable low hiss of a waif of Riverrise.

He jumped. "Who's there?" he said, his voice staccato.

"_She is dead_," the voice said again. The words seemed to seep into his being, fill his mind, repeating over and over again. Maugin was dead. Maugin, his Maugin... _dead_.

"No," Twig whispered to the lifeless body, stroking her beautiful hair. "No, Maugin, you can't be dead. Remember the Mire? Remember hiding, day after day, in that old sky-ship? Remember how we fixed it. Together. How we made it new. We escaped. We sailed the skies again. You and me." He didn't know what he was doing any more. He didn't know what he was saying. All he wanted was Maugin to wake up and tell him it was all right, that he hadn't failed his mission, that they were together again.

"She is dead," said the caterbird softly. He turned around to face the bird, his face streaked with the path of a single tear.

"I have failed," he said. "She trusted me. I let her down."

The caterbird said nothing.

"SPEAK to me!" he said, suddenly angry. "Look at me! You could have saved her, couldn't you? But instead you saved me! Me! A miserable sky captain with no crew! You could have rescued her from this p- place and she would be alive now!"

"You were there at my hatching," said the caterbird quietly.

"And you have watched over me always!" said Twig mockingly. "Just because I was in the right place at the right time, that means that I live and she doesn't, does it? She DESERVED TO LIVE!"

The caterbird shuffled its wings uncomfortably. "It is not for any of you to decide who lives and who doesn't," it said.

Twig wanted to cry out with frustration. "Sky curse you!" he cried. "May you rot in open Sky!" He turned back to Maugin, and sobs wracked his body as he put his arms round her. "Forgive me," he whispered.

After some time, he looked up and saw the waif in the shadows. It looked small and helpless, almost sweet even. All it did was watch him. Its unnerving gaze felt like a physical thing that prickled all over his body. Fourthling and waif watched each other, holding each other's gaze.

Then Twig noticed the bow in its hand, clasped so lovingly. "You," he breathed. "You killed Maugin."

He jumped to his feet, overcome with rage, and stumbled towards it, his thoughts on one thing. To kill the creature that had killed Maugin. He didn't know what he was doing; he just knew that he wanted to wrap his hands around its neck.

All of a sudden, it was gone.

He stopped abruptly. The waif seemed to have vanished into thin air. Twig felt his anger cooling like a tended flight-rock.

_Maugin._

He rushed back to where she lay, face down, and bent over her unmoving form. Carefully, he turned her onto her back so he could see her face. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful.

He swallowed against a lump in his throat. So this was where it ended. The last member of his crew was dead. He had no rage now, only dull sadness.

"Listen to her heart," whispered the caterbird behind him.

Twig turned round. "There's no point now," he said sadly.

"Listen to it, Twig," said the caterbird.

Twig sighed. He supposed he had nothing to lose. Obligingly, he leaned down and put his ear to her chest.

"There's no sound," he said after a while. It wasn't a surprise. He hadn't been expecting anything different. The cold weight of his grief was beginning to set in his chest. There was nothing he could do now. Maugin was dead, as dead as his father, as dead as his crew. As dead as Sinew, his beloved slaughterer wife.

The caterbird ruffled its feathers. "Maugin is a termagant trog, is she not?"

"Was," corrected Twig miserably. Then he frowned. "I don't understand why that's relevant."

The caterbird smiled. "Trog's hearts are on their right, not their left."

Twig gasped. His heart thudded with hope. Could it be...

Slowly, he placed his ear on the other side of Maugin's chest. Quietly, he listened. And ever, _ever_ so faintly, he heard the unmistakeable rhythm of a heartbeat. "She's alive," he breathed. "She's _alive_!"

"Only just," said the caterbird. "She must drink from the Riverrise spring if she is to survive." It stepped backwards and pointed with its wing to a shimmering pool of water.

Breathlessly, Twig lifted Maugin's body and stumbled towards the pool. He scooped a handful of the glittering water with his cupped hands and, shaking, let it drip onto her lips. He waited nervously.

Seconds passed. What if it wasn't enough? What if she was still dying? What if he hadn't done enough? What if...? What if...Thoughts fluttered in Twig's head like agitated woodmoths. Oh, please, let it work, he prayed.

"Twig..."

Twig gasped. That was unmistakeably Maugin's voice. "Maugin?"

Maugin smiled, her eyes still closed. "Twig," she said.

Twig sobbed with relief. "Yes," he said, "Yes, it's Twig."

Her hand reached out for his. He grasped it. It felt soft, and gentle, and comforting.

"Twig," she said.

Tears collected in his eyes. The journey was over. Maugin was safe.


End file.
